Three sociomaterial framings for analysing emergent activity in future learning spaces

Abstract

Institutions are increasingly redesigning academic learning spaces with the aim of enhancing learning outcomes. Existing research into this phenomenon has shown promise regarding how these new spaces are being designed and used; however, there has been much less effort towards developing a language for analysing the emergent learning activity within these spaces. In other words, it has been under-theorised. This paper responds to this gap by proposing three analytical framings and grounding each in vignettes illustrative of how they might be applied: (1) space-timefeedback as an assemblage for emergent interest-driven student activity; (2) embodiment-material as an assemblage for emergent public sensemaking; and (3) proximity-material-time as an assemblage for emergent collaborative benchmarking through group awareness and ambient feedback. Although not an exhaustive list, the three analytical framings serve as a starting point for investigations of emergent activity within future learning spaces from a sociomaterial perspective.

Teaching Novice Teachers to Enhance Learning in the Hybrid University

“…To the contrary, Kuh et al ( 2005 , 93) argue that a learning space is where the physical and the emotional intertwine in creating a ‘sense of place’ for members of the community. This view is echoed in recent literature on the ‘multiple spatialities and enactments’ of distance education and mobility (Bayne et al 2014 571), where relations are unbounded by time and geography (Mulcahy 2018 ; Tietjen et al 2021 ), and learning spaces are deeply affected by mixtures of material and digital tools (Goodyear 2020 ).…”

Towards a framework for interdisciplinary collaborative online learning spaces

“…From sociomateriality and FLS, we engage further with the elements of pedagogy, spacetime and activities (Tietjen et al, 2021) and technology to better understand and contextualise the design principles proposed.…”

“…The first design principle focuses our attention on two pedagogical drivers, namely embodiment and awareness of diverse contexts and perspectives. Embodiment recognises continuous reconfiguration of social systems where students are exposed to continuous movement across physical and virtual spaces (Tietjen et al, 2021). This provides a special challenge in the online learning space as the human body is represented by 'avatars' lacking certain essential human qualities with which students make themselves known to their peers and express themselves.…”

“…The learning needs to take place in a continuous meandering flow of activity and unfolding through a process of zooming in and out (Nicolini, 2009). By zooming out to a macro level to recognise the histories, cultures, and communities within which both the participant and the emergent activity resides and zooming in to the micro level to consider the local context (Tietjen et al, 2021).…”

Teachers’ agency during the Covid-19 lockdown: A new materialist perspective

“…In literacy and language teaching, new materialist perspectives aim to de-centre literacy and language as privileged representational practices focusing merely on the mind and transforming teaching beyond normed comparisons of skills attainments (Toohey et al 2020). These views have also enabled less anthropocentric and more relationally attuned perspectives, for example, in environmental education (Sonu and Snaza 2015;Verlie 2020), art education (Hood and Kraehe 2017), social studies education (Nelson, Segall, and Scott Durham 2021), teachers' local curriculum development (Tronsmo and Nerland 2018), and modern learning spaces (Charteris, Smardon, and Nelson 2017;Tietjen et al 2021). There have been calls for more new materialist research on teaching to (re) conceptualise teaching as a complex phenomenon, which is jointly produced in a constellation of human, nonhuman, discursive, and material elements (Strom and Viesca 2020).…”